


The Weight of Family

by Shiny_n_new



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types, Thor: The Dark World - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Possessive Behavior, Suicide Attempt, Thor: The Dark World Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-29
Packaged: 2018-01-01 06:11:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shiny_n_new/pseuds/Shiny_n_new
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki sees the past through new eyes and learns more about Thor than he ever intended to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [The Weight of Family](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1141181) by [ogawaryoko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ogawaryoko/pseuds/ogawaryoko)



> SPOILERS FOR THOR 2
> 
> This takes place post-The Dark World, while Loki is impersonating Odin.

Loki had to learn that Thor was back in Asgard from _Heimdall_. Yggdrasil’s branches, it irritated him.

It wasn’t that Heimdall was not loyal to him (or rather, to Odin). But the longer that Loki impersonated his adopted father, the more he saw the ways that Thor had, completely unintentionally, begun to bind Asgard’s citizens to himself rather than Odin. Heimdall was the perfect example.

On the face of it, Heimdall was ever-loyal, with his brief moment of treason being fuelled by good intentions and easily forgiven in the aftermath. But it did not escape Loki’s notice that Heimdall’s loyalty to the crown fell to the wayside whenever Thor asked. It fell even faster when Thor was in danger.

Thor was, as always, the beloved of Asgard.

But what did it matter? Loki sat on the throne now, cloaked in Odin’s form and unassailable. Thor had walked away from the offer of the kingship with the same confidence that carried him into battle. Everything was perfect.

Nothing was perfect.

There was a public memorial for Frigga, a massive statue that towered gracefully over the flowers and trees that surrounded it. It was enchanted to glow faintly at night, a guiding light to anyone lost in the dark. There was no such public memorial to Loki.

But in the family crypt, Frigga and Loki were side by side, statues of them at rest laying quietly in the gentle darkness with the rest of Asgard’s deceased royalty. There were no bodies, of course, but the statues gave family members a place to grieve in private. Loki found Thor here, stretched out between the stone forms of his mother and brother.

“Thor?” Loki asked. He had the urge to say something sarcastic, but Odin would not have done that, and so Loki could not either.

“Hello, Father,” Thor said, not looking up. He was propped up against Loki’s statue, his head resting against the curve of an arm. His legs were long enough that his toes brushed against the edge of Frigga’s statue. His voice was rough, as if he had been crying.

“I did not realize you had returned,” Loki said. Odin would not have sat down beside Thor, and so Loki did not.

“Just for a visit.” Thor finally looked up at him, and Loki was taken aback by how tired he looked. His eyes were shuttered and dark, red-rimmed from tears. Was this what Thor had seen when he’d come to free Loki after their mother’s death? Someone who was breaking, whose cracks and fissures were laid out for the world to see?

They stared at each other in silence for a long moment, and Loki kept his face expressionless. Something had changed between Odin and Thor in the time that he had been locked away, and Loki had to be careful until he discovered the entirety of it.

“You needn’t worry,” Thor finally said, turning away and closing his eyes. “This is not like the last time I believed Loki dead. I am not—you needn’t worry.”

Only years of practice kept Loki from twitching in surprise. He had no idea what Thor was talking about, but he did not like the implication. His curiosity sparking, he just nodded at Thor and said, “Come up before dinner starts. I’d dine with you, if you have not already made plans with your friends.”

“They do not know I’m here,” Thor said, “so I suppose I am free.” He still did not look at Loki.

Loki just nodded, gathering Odin’s robes around himself and turning on his heel. There was research to be done.  
***  
Huginn and Muninn were not stupid birds, and they had sensed something was different about their master from the moment Loki appeared in Odin’s chambers. Loki had been careful not to drop his glamour when they were around, and the ravens had taken to roosting elsewhere in the palace. Beyond that, they had not interacted. They had kept this uneasy truce going for weeks now, but Loki was going to have to break it.

 _Of course you are doing it for Thor,_ whispered an irritating voice from the back of his mind that Loki did his best to smother. It was a poisonous little voice, one as ruthless and black as the night, and it did not care for Thor at all. It was, Loki sometimes thought, the voice of his soul and his most honest self. But perhaps not. It had been quieter since Loki had taken the throne, far quieter than it had been in New York.

He shook his head. Now was not the time for self-doubt. He had ravens to catch.

It was easy work to find Huginn and Muninn’s roosting place; they were imbued with magic and shone like twin beacons to those with the eyes to see. Actually getting his hands on them was going to be a more difficult matter. They had taken refuge atop one of the highest watchtowers in the palace, having chased the guards off with menacing croaks and fluttering wings. As Loki came to the top of the stairs, he could hear them chattering at each other from the roof of the tower.

Loki slid his fingers into his pockets and pulled out a small, wrapped package. He clicked his tongue once and said, in Odin’s voice, “Come down here, my darlings.”

The raven chatter stopped.

Loki tried again. “I have food for you.”

Huginn poked his head over the side of the roof and looked at Loki upside down. It was difficult to judge the expression on the bird’s face, but it did not look overly impressed.

“Crackers,” Loki said, trying to sound enticing. Huginn’s expression turned to outright scorn. “With cheese.”

Ah, that caught their attention. Loki heard a squawk from Muninn, and Huginn’s head disappeared. The two of them were apparently conferring. Mimir’s well, had his father had to deal with this nonsense every time he sent the birds on reconnaissance missions? No wonder his hair had gone grey.

The birds came to some kind of consensus and both fluttered down to perch on the railings, eyeing Loki with undisguised suspicion. He cooed at them, feeling ridiculous, and held out two crackers.

The birds struck as one, snatching the crackers from his hands and leaving two bloody holes where their beaks had pecked him. Loki recoiled, wanting to use a well-timed blast of magic to send the two feathery menaces flying. But he needed to be patient. Odin would not have roasted the ravens to a crisp, and while he was probably never going to convince them that he was actually Odin, he could at least make them grudging allies.

The process of making them grudging allies took the better part of four hours. Loki had a feeling they were mocking him for most of it, their chatter taking a distinctly sarcastic tone several times. But finally they let him touch them, petting their chests and stroking a finger down their backs as they demolished the pomegranate Loki had fetched. Muninn still hopped away and flared his wings when Loki reached out with his magic, though.

“Shh,” Loki soothed, not retracting the tendril of magic that he was trying to wind around the birds. “Let me.”

Muninn glared at him, but ducked his head to continue eating. Pomegranate juice dripped from their beaks as Loki gently wove a spell around them. Huginn and Muninn, Thought and Memory. If any creatures could give him a peek inside of Odin’s mind, it would be these two.

Loki muttered, trying to activate the spell, and ran into what felt like a solid wall of magic. In his mind’s eye he could see it, blazing gold and made of layers upon layers of runes. He eyed it uneasily, and was just beginning to feel for any cracks or weaknesses when he heard two voices speaking. It felt as like they spoke right into his ears, as though they were both perched on his shoulders. Their voices were strange, somehow low and high-pitched at the same time, and their words came in short bursts, like…like birds squawking.

_“We will let you in, Trickster. But you will not like what you find.”_

Loki felt the sickening sensation of vertigo, like he was tumbling head over heels, and he had a moment of panic as he wondered if he had toppled off the watchtower. But no, he could see that he lay sprawled on the tower floor, Huginn and Muninn standing on his chest and looking down at him. Then his awareness of the real world disappeared and he saw a crack in the wall of magic. It widened, faster and faster, and he was dragged into it like a swimmer being pulled out to sea by the tides. He gasped, clawing at the magic that surrounded him, but it sank over him and through him. Then he was caught deep in the memories.

 

***

You are Odin, and you are deeply worried for your son. Your only remaining son. When you closed your eye, you still saw Loki’s maddened and tear-streaked face. In your dreams, you knew just what to say to keep Loki holding on, to pull him back from the brink. But those were only in dreams, because Loki was lost to you now, somewhere so deep in the realms of the dead that even Heimdall could not catch sight of him.

Some mad impulse ordered you to gather your magic and slip into the lands of the dead, to wander until you found your boy and pulled him back into life. If you had to defy Hel herself and fight your way out of her realm, you would. For you were the Gallows God, the Spear-shaker, the Wanderer, and there was no army you could not defeat, no foe you could not outwit. And if your people thought it unnatural to bring back the dead, then there was no rebellion you could not put down with brutal efficiency. You had saved Loki from death once, on the snowy plains of Jotunheim, and you would save him again-

No. No, this you could not do. Because you may have been the Wanderer, but you were also the Allfather, Lord of the Aesir, and your kingdom needed you. You could not slip away for a journey that might take years to complete when the Nine Realms lay in utter disarray.

Especially not when your family lay in such similar disarray.

Frigga was inconsolable, but that was not unexpected. You knew the shape and paths of her grief, knew how she would weather it. Thor…

Thor was a storm. Howling, unpredictable, and uncaring of what its wrath destroyed.

It had been raining for days in Asgard. Heavy rain, the kind that made rivers burst their banks and flood whole villages. Lightning fell like hammer blows. Thunder roared. It was unceasing, just like Thor’s grief. Sometimes, when his mother or his friends were by his side, the storm abated slightly, but it was a brief reprieve and nothing more.

The mage and engineer tasked with caring for the city’s waterways had come to you earlier that afternoon. In a halting, apologetic voice, she warned that the canals could only handle so much. If the rain did not stop, the city would begin to flood.

And so you had been pondering what potion you could slip into Thor’s mead to send him into a long and dreamless sleep until the city could be properly braced for his rage. This was the weight of kingship. This is what your precious, idiot sons had wanted so badly.

But then word had come from Volstagg that Thor was not in his chambers and no one could find him. No one but Heimdall, who bore news both good and ill. The good was that Thor had not gone far, and had not thrown himself into the abyss after his brother as you feared he might. The bad was that Thor was in your private workshop and library, gathering potions and spellbooks.

This could not be leading anywhere good.

“Thor,” you say, bracing yourself in the doorway. The workshop is in utter disarray, books lying everywhere and ingredients scattered on the floor like rubbish. “Thor, what are you doing?”

Thor is kneeling on the floor, drawing a chalk circle. A casting circle, you realize, your heart sinking.

“ _Thor_ ,” you say more sharply, stepping inside the room fully and closing the door behind yourself. “Answer me, now.”

He looks up, and you wonder if he has gone berserk. There is a similar look of unseeing fury in his eyes, of the raw animal determination of wolves falling upon a deer. But there is also grief, boundless and deep as the void Loki had cast himself into. There is madness, born from that fury and grief.

“You are going to bring him back,” Thor says, getting to his feet. He is swaying slightly, and you wonder how long it has been since he slept. “You have that power. You can call the dead back.”

“I cannot,” you lie, because telling Thor the truth serves no purpose.

Thor throws a book at your feet, uncaring of the fact that it is so old that the paper is tissue thin. You see the rune on the cover and you understand. _Necromancy._ A part of you wants to laugh at the irony. While you have been planning to batter your way into the realms of the dead and steal back your son, Thor has been studying a way to raise the dead through magic.

Grief has a way of bringing out the hidden facets of people.

“You are going to bring him back,” Thor repeats, and the wild look in his eye has not faded. He looks like a man on the edge of some terrible cliff. He looks like Loki did.

“The creature I might raise through necromancy would not be your brother.” And that at least is the truth. Necromancy is used for raising armies of dead men and liches. The poor souls that used it to bring their loved ones back quickly found that the creature wearing their beloved’s face was twisted to the core.

“LIAR!” Thor screams, and thunder booms outside, rattling the walls. Mjolnir is in his hand, crackling with energy, and lightning is sparking in his eyes.

“Don’t you think I would bring him back if I could?” you snap, stepping closer and holding out your hands as if to calm him. “Do you think you’re the only one grieving, you foolish boy?”

“You never loved him!” Thor screams, lightning illuminating the shattered, desperate expression on his face. “Not like I did! You lied to him his whole life! You lied to both of us! Fix this! Bring him BACK!”

“No,” you say, knowing it will set him off like a spark to gunpowder. You have neither the time nor the patience to talk him down gently and unlike Loki, he isn’t perched on the edge of an abyss. At least not physically.

Predictably, he charges forward, Mjolnir held aloft for a killing blow. You twitch your fingers, the spell coming to you as easily as your own name, and Mjolnir flies from his grasp into yours. Mjolnir howls at the separation, at being ripped from her master, but you have larger problems than an overly emotional hammer right now.

Thor blinks at you, confused and upset and staring at the way Mjolnir sits easily in your grasp. Then he lunges at you anyway, because your son is nothing if not tenacious. A berserkr to the end. You swing Mjolnir and while you don’t have your son’s raw strength, it is enough to send him flying backwards to crash into the bookshelf on the far wall.

“You know nothing of magic or necromancy, so do not presume to tell me what I will and won’t do,” you say, watching as he climbs to his feet and stares at you like an animal in a trap. “I cannot bring him back this way, and trying would only cause us all pain. He is _gone,_ Thor.”

“You’re a liar,” Thor growls out, and he sounds just barely human. “You know a way.”

“No.” What good will it do to tell him that it would take a journey into Hel’s lands to bring him back, and that even then it might not be successful? He would go himself and leave Asgard without its strongest warrior. Unless it is his own life hanging in the balance, Thor has never understood that the needs of many must outweigh the needs of one.

You wonder at that, how you have raised someone so selfless and selfish at the same time.

“You’ll do it.” He pushes himself to his feet and smiles at you, only it is not the sunny smile that you’ve come to expect of him. It is sharp-edged and full of grief. He reaches for a ceremonial knife that has tumbled from one of the tables and holds it to his own throat.

Lightning flashes again and the world becomes starkly-lit and terrible.

“You’ll do it,” he says, the blade against his skin, “or I will go after him myself.”

You love your son, your firstborn boy. You have never been closer to killing him yourself than you are in this moment, and the irony is not lost on you. All you say is, “And what makes you think you will be of any use to him if you find him? You will be one more lost soul in Hel’s realm.”

“I am the Thunderer,” Thor said. Lightning crackles in the spaces between the strands of his hair, and his eyes have never looked this blue before. “I am the storm. There is nothing I can’t do.”

You had been hoping he had more of a speech prepared, but he is not Loki and he has always been direct. It does not matter. You hold Mjolnir with your right hand, and he cannot see what your left hand is doing. Vines are curling over the windowsill and through the floorboards, and he does not notice at all.

“Put the knife down,” you tell him, giving him a chance.

“I’m sorry, Father,” he says, and he is absolutely sincere. It does not stop him from moving his arm, trying to draw the knife across his throat.

The vines move quickly, like a fishing net being pulled closed. They wrap around his arms, his legs, his torso, lightning fast, tugging him to the ground. Thor shouts, trying to struggle away, but the vines have stretched him spread-eagle across the floor. They sap at his strength, growing stronger the more he writhes.

Throughout it all, you watch impassively. This is necessary.

When it sinks in that he is well and truly pinned and that Mjolnir will not answer his call, Thor begins to scream. It is wordless, nothing but fury and grief, and the storm outside picks up in response. Thunder booms, enough to make the stones of Asgard shake, and you resign yourself to tightening the vines around his throat.

You wish that you could let him scream until his voice broke and exhaustion overtook him. But he is not a normal boy, and so you cannot be a normal father. The power within Thor must either be controlled or it will destroy him and a large portion of the Nine Realms as well. And so you drop to your knees beside your son, your old bones creaking, and you choke him until his lips turn blue.

The thunder stops.

You lessen the vines’ pressure in increments, ready to tighten them again if Thor looks like he is going to begin thrashing. But he simply lies on the floor taking deep breaths, his eyes staring unseeing up at the ceiling.

“Are you calm?” you finally ask him, when the vines are entirely loose around him and he still has not moved.

He nods. The rain still pounds at the windows. You reach out a hand and rest it on his head, like you did when he was small and still trusted you completely. You are so tired.

“I have a potion that will help you sleep,” you say, stroking his hair. “It will keep you from dreaming.”

Thor closes his eyes. “Not here.”

You had not actually planned to have Thor take a weeklong slumber on your workshop floor, but you don’t say that aloud. Instead, you help him to his feet and hand him Mjolnir. He hangs her from his belt and does not look you in the eye.

He leads you to Loki’s room. You pause at the threshold and watch him continue forward, shrugging out of his clothes until he’s clad only in his leggings. He flops across Loki’s bed and buries his face in the pillow. One of Loki’s coats is still lying across the bed, and you drape it across Thor like a blanket.

“I miss him so much. I feel like I’m drowning,” Thor says as you hand him the potion. “It is all my fault.”

“It is no one’s fault,” you say, and that both is and isn’t a lie. Thor swallows the potion in one long swig. “We each choose our own path.”

“If I had never come back, he would still be alive.” Thor’s eyelids are already drooping. “If I had died, he would have lived.”

 _Perhaps_ , you think but do not say. You watch as he drifts to sleep, his breathing deepening to small snores. Outside, the rain stops for the first time in a week.

***

Loki came back to himself abruptly, gasping for breath like a drowning man breaking the water’s surface. He swept his arm out, sending the ravens fluttering off his chest and onto the railing. It took several seconds of confused gasping before Loki remembered to make sure the glamour was still up. He looked down at his hands, relieved to see they were Odin’s. The last thing he needed was Heimdall catching sight of him.

Loki pushed himself to his knees and tried to still the shaking in his arms. That had not been what he expected. Not at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Thor’s appetite was reassuringly familiar. He was currently decimating a roasted goat leg, having already devoured a chicken and a bowl of vegetable stew. Loki watched Thor’s throat as he downed a flagon of mead. He wanted to run a finger along the spot Thor had tried to slash.

“Are you well?” Thor asked and Loki realized that his staring had not gone unnoticed. “You look at me as though I might suddenly vomit fire.”

“It has simply been too long since I saw you last,” Loki said, taking a sip of his own mead.

“You are perfectly capable of scrying should you wish to spy on me,” Thor responded, popping a grape into his mouth.

“I do not spy, merely check in,” Loki said, echoing a phrase Odin was fond of using. He glanced to the side, making a show of being uneasy. “When we spoke earlier today, you mentioned that you did not…did not feel the way that you did the last time we believed Loki dead.”

Thor went still, staring intently at Loki.

“What changed? Especially since your mother also…” Loki trailed off then. It was fortunate that Odin had always been closed off, sharing his more tender emotions with few people. It meant that he did not have to imitate a man grieving for his lover when he spoke of Frigga, which would have felt perverse in a way that even Loki shuddered from.

Thor looked to the side, out the window and towards the Bifrost. “Many things, I suppose. I had experienced that grief once before, and so it did not blindside me the way it did the first time. I knew what it was to lose a brother. Killing Malekith helped also.” For a moment, an expression of dark satisfaction crossed Thor’s face. It was quickly gone, but flashes of the killer within his brother always intrigued Loki, especially now, when he played at being so righteous.

“Is that all?”

“I knew why,” Thor said, his expression distant, like he was looking at something far away. “The first time Loki disappeared, I had so many unanswered questions. When he was attacking me, I had no idea at all why it was happening or what he was talking about when he said he was not my brother. Even when you explained, even when you and I and Heimdall and my friends put the pieces together…none of it made sense. I had so many questions, and I was so sure that if I could have just spoken to him and told him that I loved him, everything would just fix itself.”

Thor fiddled with the rim of his cup. “And then suddenly he was alive. And on Midgard, killing people. And he tried to kill me again. I understood then that he hated me, and he blamed me for many things, and that my words were blunt and unsubtle and could not reach him.” Thor blinked rapidly, and Loki realized that he was blinking away tears. “When he died on Svartalfheim, he apologized. And I forgave him. He died in battle, just like Mother, and so they are together in Valhalla. I know he isn’t alone, or frightened, or in pain. That makes all the difference in the world.”

Then he smiled at Loki, a real smile for once, and Loki wanted to lunge across the table and kiss him, or slap him, or _something._ Instead, he just nodded and said, “Yes. Yes, that does make it easier.”

Thor’s smile gentled and he rose up from his chair. From the folds of his cloak, he pulled out a Midgardian cellphone, of all things. It had the word ‘StarkPhone’ emblazoned on the back. He rounded the table and took a seat beside Loki. “Here, I know you worry that I am all alone when I am on Midgard, but I am not. Look at some pictures of my friends and I.”

“You know well that I am not terribly interested in the lives of your Midgardians,” Loki said. He _was_ actually interested, though, since things that infuriated him were generally of interest. “Please tell me these images are not entirely of you and Jane Foster.”

“You really ought to be kinder to her, Father,” Thor said, sliding his thumb across the screen to move the images. “She is bearing your grandchild, after all.”

The world felt as if it was suddenly spinning off its axis. All Loki could hear was the blood roaring in his ears. And then he realized Thor was laughing.

“I’m sorry, I am terribly sorry, that wasn’t funny,” Thor said, covering his mouth as if that could stifle his laughter. “I just wanted to see the look on your face.”

Loki resisted the urge to smack Thor across the head with Gungnir, but it was a close thing. Without truly thinking about it, he said, “Leave the joking to your brother.”

They both went still. Thor swallowed several times, but otherwise recovered well enough. He even offered Loki a smile. “Speaking of him, look.”

Loki glanced down at the phone and saw himself staring back. He blinked in surprise. It took him a moment to recognize the background as the city in Germany in which he had allowed SHIELD to capture him. The Loki in the picture was in his royal regalia, horned helmet gleaming in the light as he stood over a mass of kneeling mortals. But the photo had been cropped, cutting away the sight of the crowd. Without the kneeling, terrified people visible, Loki’s smile could have been mistaken for one of mischievous enjoyment. Not a kind smile, but not one of utter malice.

“SHIELD has images of him, but he is not smiling in them,” Thor said, gazing down at the photo. “And since Midgardian technology cannot interface with our own, this seemed like…I wanted a photo of him.”

Loki could hear the catch in Thor’s voice and had a brief moment of panic. He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t watch his brother grieve for him, why had he ever believed this was a good idea? But Thor mustered himself and Loki did likewise, retreating behind Odin’s sternness until his impulsive desire to grab Thor and tell him the truth faded.

“Anyway, this is Tony Stark.” In the picture, Stark was wearing Thor’s helmet and looked more than a little drunk. He was leaning heavily on Thor, who looked incredibly amused. “He is an inventor, among other things. He designed much of the technology in this communication device. It’s actually remarkably similar to the Vanir interfaces from a few centuries ago, you see? I think it will only be a matter of time before the Midgardians have devised their own way to travel between the realms.” Thor looked at him with a serious expression. “If Tony Stark should find such way, you must not kill him Father. You might want to, because he is insolent by nature and speaks entirely in references that I do not understand, but you must not.”

“I make no promises,” Loki said, taking a sip of mead. He didn’t like Stark.

Thor ducked his head and smiled. “I’ll pass that warning along when I see him next.”

“You are serious about staying on Midgard.” He could not understand it, no matter how hard he tried. It was _useful_ , certainly. Neutralizing Odin had been difficult enough, and Loki was well aware that his record of beating Thor was spotty at best. Loki has sketched out a rough plan of letting Thor take the throne, giving him terrible advice under the guise of fatherly wisdom, and retaking the throne once Thor had proven incompetent at it. Thor had completely upended that plan without even trying, which was typical of him. But Loki was adaptable, and had already planned how best to take advantage of Thor’s absence in Asgard. But why Midgard?

“I enjoy Midgard,” Thor said, and Loki realized with horror that he’d said at least some of his thoughts aloud. He’d _never_ done something so careless before.

Odin’s memories were hanging heavier in his mind than Loki wanted to admit.

“Yes, you obviously do,” Loki replied smoothly. “My question is why? Is it some nostalgic holdover from your boyhood adventures there?”

Thor shook his head. “Nostalgia is not a great comfort to me right now.”

“Then why? Because you are so much stronger than them?”

“I am stronger than everyone here,” Thor said, giving him a look that was somewhere between tolerant and annoyed. “And thank you for your kind assessment of my character.”

Loki was about to retort with something rude and cutting when he realized that this was far too much like the normal arguments between himself and Thor, and therefore nothing like the normal arguments between Odin and Thor. He flailed for a response and ended up simply fixing Thor with his most imperious glare. He was gratified to see Thor squirm under it.

“Midgard is interesting,” Thor finally said. “It’s full of things I’ve never seen before. Food I’ve never eaten, beer I’ve never drank. Adventures I’ve never had.”

“And humans,” Loki said, unable to hide the disgust in his voice.

“Yes, and humans,” Thor snapped. “Why do you dislike them so much?”

“Why do you care for them so much?”

“Because they are brave!” Thor said, shooting to his feet and slamming his hands on the table. “Because they are fragile and terrifyingly easy to kill, and yet they fight as fiercely as any Asgardian! Because they are mortal, and consigned to perhaps a century if they are lucky, and so they pack as much life into a few years as we do in a millennia! Because when I have been at my lowest, my most frightened and unsure, they have reassured me. They have done their best to _protect_ me.” Thor smiled, fragile and sad. “How could I not love them?”

Loki was silent, struck speechless by fury and love in equal measure. Stupid, big-hearted Thor, who always saw the good in creatures that were wretched and irredeemable. Some bit of that sentiment must have shown on his face, because Thor shook his head.

“Midgard hasn’t stolen me, Father,” he said, shoulders slumping tiredly. “I am of Asgard. I always will be. But I don’t want to be here right now. Is that so hard to understand?”

No, it wasn’t. Loki loved Asgard, loved its warmth and beauty and power, but he hated it in equal measures. How many times had he wanted to just _run_ when he was younger? How many nights in the dungeons had he spent dreaming of burning it all down? He never would. He never could. But he knew what it was like to wish desperately to be anywhere but home.

And of course, Thor had managed to extract himself with grace and nobility, with no hard feelings between himself and the rest of Asgard. Loki heard the servants murmur when they thought they were out of earshot, talking about poor Prince Thor and how they would have left the palace too, rather than spend every day living in the spaces where their mother and brother should have been.

They wouldn’t have had such kind words for Loki, he was sure of it.

The edge of cruelty that was never far from Loki’s heart shoved its way in, and so Loki said, “Perhaps I should have banished you to Jotunheim instead.” He wanted to see Thor flinch, wanted to see the hurt on his face. Thor had always been so desperate to please Odin, like a puppy trying his best to learn a trick.

But Thor had his own darkness and jagged edges now, and so he just sneered and said, “Perhaps Laufey would have adopted me, since you were kind enough to take in his son.”

Loki inhaled sharply and considered tossing a fistful of magic into Thor’s face. Instead, he just snapped, “Perhaps I would have let him!”

“Perhaps you should have!” Thor roared, and Loki wondered if he was going to flip the table over. But instead, he just tightened his grip on the edge until the wood nearly cracked and said in a strained voice, “This is truly stupid fight we are having right now.”

And yes, it really was. Thor always had a way of goading him into those kinds of stupid fights, even when Loki was trying his best to pretend to be someone else. What would Odin say? “I found Loki in a frozen wasteland, and I brought him home and raised him as my son. It was not a malicious act.”

“No. You were meant to find him.” Thor looked serious as the grave. “We were always meant to be his family.”

“Meant?”

“I have been talking with Jane and Eric about other branches on Yggdrasil,” Thor said. “Parallel universes. Alternate universes. Whatever you would call them. And I think Loki is a constant in all that we exist in. Where there is an Odin and Frigga and Thor, there is a Loki, and he is bound to us as we are to him.”

Thor said it with such surety, as if he had seen the fabric of reality itself and traced a pattern sewn onto it. Loki had always envied Thor’s surety, the way that he seemed to _know_ even when he had no reason to be confident. Loki rarely felt sure, these days. He hadn’t in quite some time. A dead mortal’s voice echoed in his head. _‘You lack conviction.’_

“And if in every universe Loki spreads chaos and grief where ever he goes?”

“He is Loki,” Thor said, shrugging his enormous shoulders. “I would expect no less of him.”

Loki wanted desperately to reach across the distance between them and pull Thor towards him. Perhaps to hold him, perhaps to hit him. Both impulses were always dangerously close to the surface when Thor was near.

But Thor was already turning away, his eyes on the gleaming colors of the Bifrost. “With your leave, Father, I think I will depart.”

It was then that Loki realized, with a terrible sinking feeling, that he had escaped one of Odin’s cages only to willing place himself in another. Because if he wanted Asgard and the throne (and oh, how he _wanted_ ), he had to be Odin. Odin would not have forced Thor to stay in Asgard, would not have locked him away where no one could see him and he would belong only to one person rather than all the realms. Odin would not do that, and so Loki could not either.

He’d been caught in his own trap. Loki thought he heard ravens cawing in the distance, their croaks like laughter.

“I will see you out,” was all he said. Was all he could say.

Thor was silent on the walk through the palace, and Loki could see that he had a spring in his step. When he reached Heimdall’s observatory, Thor laughed and joked with the gatekeeper, even going so far as to give him a friendly pat on the back. Loki had never seen Heimdall touch or be touched be another person before. Something in him seethed a little harder.

“Don’t worry for him, Sire,” Heimdall said, as Thor disappeared in a flash of multicolored light. “He is happy on Midgard.”

Yes. That was what Loki feared.


End file.
